In the kitchen again! And this week, honoring Passover and its 10-day fight with yeast, I decided to make some bread before the matzoh party begins on Tuesday. Although, in the Schwartz residence, matzoh party happens every day :)

Let’s do this, you know how: mix, bake, eat, clean, repeat step three, look at the pretty pictures.
This recipe makes one 8.5 x 4.5 x 2.5 in. loaf of bread, more than that is gluttony.

BUY/BORROW/STEAL THIS:
5 oz. sugar
3 oz. margarine
1 egg
3/4 cup mashed bananas (about 2 bananas)
1 oz. sour cream (or apple sauce)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup toffee bits, walnuts or chocolate chips

DO/ORDER SOMEONE TO DO THIS:
1. Preheat oven to 350ºF
2. In a med-big bowl, cream sugar and margarine. If you don’t know what this is, read this. It’s basically to create air bubbles in the mix, to make the bread fluffier. Use room-temperature margarine. Beat by hand or mixer.
If you’re too lazy, do it with a whisk for a bit, and adding ingredients little by little; the difference might not be too much in this bread… I mess every recipe up and usually get away with it, so give it a try like this.
3. Add egg, mashed bananas and sour cream. Mix until blended.
4. Stir in vanilla.
5. Combine flour and baking soda, add to banana mixture.
6. Add toffee, walnuts or chocolate chips.
7. Pour into greased pan and bake at 350ºF for 35 to 40 minutes, but check it after minute 30.

EAT/GIVE/THROW THIS:

Mmm! plate from CB2, walnuts from Mexico, toffee bits from Hershey’s, flashlight from Home Depot.

My latest baking adventure.
Because the getting-a-driver’s-license adventure wasn’t so great of an adventure anyway!

The deal here is to make a white cake all Rainbow Brite using food coloring. Fun!
The thing is that I used Sprite Zero instead of oil, eggs and water (just like that) and it worked, you’ll just have to bake it waaay longer, so give it a try and eat an entire cake without so much guilt.

Ok, so:

1. One 12-oz can of Sprite Zero for one 18-oz white cake mix box. Mix mix mix until smooth, don’t worry about the other ingredients. (Or worry and use oil, eggs and water, it’s the same).
2. Divide the batter in 6/more/less containers and add food coloring to each to create as many colors as you want (4 drops of each color will do). I made 6 because I ran out of ideas and couldn’t figure out how to make more colors.
3. Pour the little mixes in a cake pan. Start with a color and pour the next one on top without mixing anything, they’ll settle around. Continue until you’ve poured all the colors and give it a little hit against your counter/table/toilet lid/cubicle so the batter settles in.
4. Bake for as long as the box says, but if you’re using Sprite you’ll have to bake it longer (in my case, like 15 more minutes), so check every once in a while.
5. Done! Take pictures, write about it and eat the whole thing. Tomorrow you’ll make another one using only blue and pink. Or black and orange. Or red, white and blue.

Here are my pictures. I’m sorry it looks so Easter gay, next time I’ll add more color.

Experimenting in the kitchen took me to an unexpected place: the cold treats world.
I’ve been dreaming of an ice cream maker for so long just because then I’ll be able to eat ice cream anytime with the excuse that, since I made it at home, it must be healthy. Haha oh psicology.

Anyway, last week I found a new lover: Nieve de limon, or a sorbet-like lime treat.
It is soo good, and it came from my favorite non-Mexican chef for Mexican food: Rick Bayless. Weird, I know.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients.

3/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (the green one; what in Mexico we call “limon”; the juice of about 6 big ones). Use one of these to give your hands a break.
Zest of one lime (finely chopped)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cup water
1/3 cup corn syrup (Karo Light Corn Syrup works wonders)

Instructions.

Whisk everything in a bowl, until sugar dissolves.
Pour into a glass or metal pan, place in the freezer and let it sit for 45 mins.
After 45 mins., stir once every 15 minutes until it gets a sorbet-like consistency (about 2 hours total), breaking large crystals that have formed.
When it looks ready, cover and freeze until ready to serve.

Results.

If you were good, it should look like this, and taste like summer vacations.

Try it with:

Strawberries
Pretzels
Pop tarts

It’s awesome, except it makes my teeth grind and my stomach dream.

Hace rato me metí a bañar y cuando salí me puse de la primera crema que encontré. Resultó ser una que hace años no usaba, y orale, que me recordó los “malos viejos tiempos”. Me llené de nostalgia por un tiempo donde sentía que por primera vez no encajaba, y si ahorita siento que no encajo (y se siente mucho), imagínense antes. Dejé todo lo que estaba haciendo y perdí el tiempo como antes.

No se en qué momento me asaltó la tarde y yo sin estudiar aún, escondiéndome de mi Reader que tiene como 300 cosas sin leer, pero leyendo bien incrédula un email del ayudante de mi abogado diciéndome “on a side note” que se había cambiado el primer nombre… jajaja ¡¿qué?!

Mientras, ayer hice pan pero en un molde gatúbelo que me encontré en la tienda de Hello Kitty. ¿Quién dice que aquí ya no hay dinero para el pan? Les presumo.

Así lo vi:

Y así terminó:

Un poco quemado, pero decente para ser la primera prueba; porque estos días me estoy perdonando la primera prueba de todo.

Qué lindo. Pensé que me iba a hacer más feliz, pero aún no. Tal vez para la próxima.
Lo que si es que el sabor me quedó mal. Era de piña pero la caja no decía “para la niña”, sino “Consúmase antes de Agosto de 2006″ Joojojoj

Ya me voy, hasta el lunes!

First, a look at the Day of the Dead / Dia de los Muertos bread from Chicago. It kind of posed for the photo.

Then, homemade bread I made the other day. It looks like someone killed it in the oven before I noticed. It tasted really good, in my defense.

So bad.
Bad bread is the new cool bread, though.

So, continuing my training for Stepford Jocelyn, I’ve learned to make bread. Like, edible.
Plus, not any bread, I learned how to make Challah. Call my grandmother.

I’ve decided that if I can’t be the breadwinner, I’ll be the breadmaker, and I’m OK with that. For now.
Because bread tastes better than money, non?

Look at the pictures! The watery thing from the beginning tasted like liquid bread.

Pantástico!

Today I decided to try out new Madeleines recipes because now that I bought all the ingredients to make another 1,500, well, I’m determined to make them.

After the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious success of that legendary first time, I thought I could handle something new. Not!
Just look at the monster cookie pictures. Scary.

The first batch (soft like a mollusk) tasted like yellow cake; the second one (hard as an impure thought) like a mix between lemon and rags. They did smell good, all of them. Yay?
I think I’m going back to testing and perfectioning my original Williams-Sonoma recipe. Expect some non-PMS-related weight gaining.

However, today I learned:
- That I don’t like lemony cookies. Only Lemony Snicket.
- That hot cookies will burn your throat.
- That my Madeleines pan was worth every Capitalist penny.
- That I’m awesome.

Just don’t try these at home. Or anywhere else. Ever.

Any French bonshommes (ou femmes) reading this that might consider sharing their grandmother’s recipe?

J’adore la France aujourd’hui. Et puisque je fais de la pâtisserie (je sais; incroyable, non?), cette fois j’ai fait des madeleines.

Alors, un peu d’histoire…

Une madeleine est un petit gâteau traditionnel lorrain aux oeufs, en forma de coquillage, allongée ou ronde.
En France, la madeleine est souvent présente durant le goûter des enfants ou la pause café en entreprise. Symbole de convivialité (le fait de « tremper sa madeleine » va de pair avec le fait de converser autour d’une boisson chaude), elle a fait la réputation de la ville de Commercy, où elles sont fabriquées depuis le XVIIIe siècle

Donc, je les ai fait, les madeleines, et j’ai reussi! …pas complètement, peut-être, parce que je pense que j’ai mis trop d’extrait d’amandes, mais elles ont eu bon goût quand même.
Et maintenant, les photos!!

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The pretty writer’s note:

This is my first post en Français, ever. Please don’t condemn me, I sound like a 5-year-old anyway.
The post was mainly about the story of the madeleines and how much I rule these days for baking without cookie or cake mix.
…Also about how much I rule for writing in French (good or not-so-good-yet). Who loves me!

Now go make cookies. If you email me I’ll share my stolen recipe with you :)